Simulation of Self-Piercing Riveting Process and Joint Failure with Focus on Material Damage and Failure Modelling

Weight reduction is one of the main objectives that has played a pivotal role in designing Automobiles in the past decades. Various methods can be employed in this direction such as replacing traditional steel with lightweight aluminum alloys or using a combination of multiple lightweight materials. Joining techniques like spot welding, which generally perform well for joining of steel body panels, do not yield satisfactory results in joining of aluminum sheets. Consequently, there has been an increasing interest in developing alternative joining techniques as a replacement for spot welding in the automotive industry.